We all need to move on from canceled Trump reality show
Nowadays, the former president is sipping virgin daiquiris poolside at Mar-a-Lago and a lot of scribblers and talking heads need a new angle. Their audiences do, too.
Trumpism can’t win at the ballot box, but even after the Capitol Hill riot, it continued online. Some of Trump’s most devoted acolytes put their faith in QAnon, a hodgepodge of crazy conspiracy theories with ever-changing details and deadlines.
Long story short, Q said The Donald would remain in office, lock up Joe Biden, bring down a globalist Satanist cabal that … look, it was complicated. But as Biden headed for the White House instead of the Graybar Hotel, even the kooks had seen enough.
“Anyone else feeling beyond let
down?” one member wrote Wednesday on a QAnon internet forum. “It’s like being a kid and seeing the big gift under the tree thinking it is exactly what you want only to open it and realize it was a lump of coal.”
“We all just got played,” read another post.
Yes, you did. The ringleaders padded their bank accounts while these deluded souls wasted four years of their lives believing Trump to be a “God Emperor.” True believers dissected Trump’s every tweet, speech and tie color searching for hidden messages about their hero’s ultimate victory.
Politicians make terrible heroes, a lesson all should take to heart, right and left. A president is a mere hireling, and voters are his boss. Do a good job and they’ll let you stay in office another four years. Fail and you’re out on your ear. It’s nothing personal, just business. While pundits point and laugh at Q’s craziness, some need to look in the mirror. They didn’t fall for conspiracy theories but still wasted four years focusing on one guy in the Oval Office to the exclusion of everything else.
Conservative stalwarts threw away half of their ideological priors just to get in Trump’s good graces. Some flipped on free trade, others flopped on national defense, and most shrugged at moral failures they spent their lives mocking.
Others swung the other way, launching scorched-earth campaigns on every elected Republican no matter how nonTrumpy they were. They didn’t oppose the policies of, say, Sen. Susan Collins, but that dastardly “R” before “Maine” meant guilt by association. They would vote for Karl Marx himself if it annoyed Donald Trump.
That’s not an exaggeration. Former conservative pundit Max Boot said, “I would sooner vote for Josef Stalin than I would vote for Donald Trump.”
Boot and Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post essentially ran the same column three times a week for four years straight. “I’m a Republican but I can’t support Trump” might be interesting the first 10 times you write it, but by the 128th it kind of loses its oomph.
Cable news wasn’t much better. Every time you tuned into Fox News, Trump was the greatest ever; head to CNN or MSNBC to find he was actually the worst. In television’s defense, the guy was great for ratings. The only thing Trump lovers and Trump haters agreed upon was that our 45th president should dominate their every waking hour from 2016 to 2020.
Today, Donald Trump is sipping virgin daiquiris poolside at Mar-a-Lago and a lot of scribblers and talking heads need a new angle. Their audiences should as well.
It’s not like there aren’t more important issues to focus on. Improving education, reinvigorating our economy, crushing COVID-19 once and for all.
Thankfully, President Biden doesn’t trigger the strong emotions that President Trump did. It’s just not as tempting to view every policy challenge through the prism of Joe’s dull Twitter feed.
So, to pundits, programmers and audiences alike, it’s time to say farewell to Donald Trump. I will as soon as I submit this article.